Voter ID and Democratic Ineptitude

The debate over Voter ID is one of those clarifying moments that demonstrate why America’s future is squarely in the hands of the Republican Party. No matter how crazy or dangerous the GOP becomes, the left is unable to check them. For now, and for the foreseeable future, the only role of the Democratic Party is to act as an occasional check on Republicans’ most outrageous extremes.

Everyone on both sides knows what’s driving the campaign for tighter voting laws. Both Republicans and Democrats are convinced that conservatives can gain a slight, but potentially decisive edge in a few critical swing state elections through a careful campaign of vote suppression. Voter ID plays a minor role in that process in terms of numbers – it is unlikely affect more than a very tiny percentage of the vote, but it plays a crucial role in political positioning.

Using Voter ID laws as the thin end of the vote suppression wedge is a brilliant political move. It tempts Democrats to place themselves disastrously out of position to confront the whole campaign. And it’s working.

Since Karl Rove burned the Big Tent and set the Republican Party on a 50%+1 political strategy, our whole political process has been devolving into a zero-sum game. Gone are the days when the Republican Party spent energy reaching out to new constituencies. The Rove Strategy meant consolidating an ever-more ideologically motivated base which could be counted on to deliver a ground game. The problem with the Rove Strategy is that every election becomes a nail-biter.

This strategy explains why Republicans have been remarkably successful in placing wild-eyed extremists into down-ballot offices in traditional conservative strongholds while Republicans steadily disappear from the map in places with diverse or urban populations. It is a strategy of concentration, rather than expansion.

Making it work means building political fortresses around key geographies. Under these conditions the only way to expand conservative influence into new areas is to drive down overall participation.

As a whole the strategy is so brazenly obnoxious that it could threaten the Republican brand, but the deep, structural ineptitude of the Democratic Party leaves them too clumsy to capitalize on the vulnerability. They have bitten down hard on the Voter ID bait and now they’re hooked.

Voter ID was a poor place to make a stand in the fight against vote suppression. We are all used to presenting a state issued ID to conduct almost any business. Swipe a credit card at WalMart? Show your ID. Want to visit an office tower? Show your ID. You can’t fly, dip Skoal, or buy a pack of Sudafed without proving who you are.

Only through stunning, tone-deaf ineptitude could the left be tempted to waste energy on a pitched battle over Voter ID. They have been maneuvered into arguing that democracy can’t function unless political decisions are influenced by people who lack the operational capacity to obtain a state issued card. Along the way they have voluntarily reinforced the conservative smear that Democrats can only win by attracting the votes of the least competent or capable in society. How could they not see this coming?

On the issue of Voter ID Democrats made the same strategic error that Republicans made with Obamacare. They could have engaged on the issue. They could have acknowledged that integrity is a value on par with participation. In other words, instead of freaking out and screaming about racism, they could have acknowledged some of the realities that make Voter ID tough to fight.

Along the way they could have insured that state ID’s were easy and free to obtain. Just as Tea Party groups are forcing local election officials to purge rolls, liberals could have pressed local officials into mass campaigns to improve access to identification. By recognizing a valid point and engaging on the issue they would have been in a position to blunt the darker strategic impact of these laws. More importantly, they would not have been framed as the enemies of honest elections. They would then in a much better position to fight over the more toxic elements of the vote suppression campaign.

In some ways the Democrats may be better organized politically, but they are grossly out of touch with the values and assumptions of the mass of America’s dominant middle. Their failure to operate as an effective political force is part of the reason Republicans have grown so extreme. Thanks in part to the Democrats, the far-right fringe can steer the GOP off an ideological cliff and still win elections. It is hard to imagine conditions inside the Republican Party improving as long as Democrats remain this inept.